New Rule

Last night I visited with my uncle Mike and his family — the “game uncle.” He is more enthusiastic about board games than I am, and his formidable collection is always growing. He introduced me to all the Days of Wonder games (Shadows Over Camelot, Pirate’s Cove, Ticket To Ride), and on this visit he purchased their latest, Colisseum.

The game has a feel much like Amun Re, actually. There are only five turns in the whole game, played in phases in which each player takes a turn. So players have “turns” four times per round, but the effect is a semi-simultaneous progression. Contrary to whole-turn games like Risk or Settlers, the players’ positions are improved incrementally, all meshed together. It makes for a game that, while appearing slow, is actually very engaging and lends itself well to advanced strategy. The extra time and relatively small steps by which players act gives people plenty of opportunity to analyze the situation and make considered adjustments — neatly addressing the problem of getting more casual players into a deeper game.
The theme of the game is players as Roman impresarios, building lavish arenas and staging events to impress the Roman nobility. Players have little colisseum tiles spaced around the board, laid across a track that little pawns representing the Emperor, consuls, and citizens move along. Their movement is controlled by rolls and getting them to land on your colisseum nets you bonus points. Colisseums can be improved by enlarging them (increasing the chance of getting a pawn to land inside, as well as offering the chance to stage bigger events), buying season tickets that produce a steady stream of points and wealth, or building an Emperor’s Loge that lets you roll two dice for pawn movement instead of one.

Staging events involves a simple form of set collection and resource management, with a few twists. One of the phases is the “asset tile auction:” five groups of three tiles are arranged in the center of the board. The active player selects a group and opens the bidding on it for all players. If the active player wins the auction, they take the tiles into their hand, replace them with new ones drawn from a bag, and the next player gets to start an auction. If another player wins, the active player does not replace the tiles removed but instead picks another group to start. This continues until every player has won once, and that’s how you get tiles. There’s also a phase for trading in which you can exchange tiles for other tiles or for money. The tiles are used to stage events, which are simply lists of sets needed and a associated point value, but there’s a broad range of options for tiles and events. One set may require three Gladiators, three lions, and a Chariot, for example, while another may require two Actors, two Musicians, two Priests, and a Decoration. Producing an event nets point values, plus any bonuses from things like nobility attending, previously produced events (i.e. your colisseum’s reputation) and so on.

The scoring mechanic is also unusual. Instead of a total score for the game, your score is equal to whichever event was most successful out of the five chances you had to produce one. If the best event you produced was a combat on turn three worth 56 points, then 56 is your score.

My impression from play was a game that was extremely well-balanced and consistently engaging despite its relatively complex interwoven mechanics. As I mentioned above, the reordering of turns into phase-based rounds slows the game down enough to allow people to get into it and plan. I noticed people who normally don’t much care for long term strategy scheming and plotting with the best of us. The set collection and resource management is fairly straightforward and familiar, but you hardly notice it amongst all the other things you have to consider. I particularly like the auction mechanic, which is much like Amun Re. It’s easy to see how necessary it was to randomize some aspect of resource collection given how predictable everything else is, but I appreciate that they didn’t just do a random draw. Five groups of three tiles to choose from every round and the task of trying to predict what other people are going to put their money down on makes it a challenge and a pleasure to try and get what you need each turn. And if you mess up, you can always try trading!

In summary, Colisseum is a solid addition to the Days of Wonder catalog, displaying the characteristic attention to detail and fine craftsmanship I’ve come to expect. If you’re looking to pick up a Days of Wonder game I would still recommend Shadows Over Camelot first, but Colisseum would make a great second choice

Tags: Game Criticism //